INTRODUCTION: What a week it was for COBA7! Distributing the 28th annual ALLEN REPORT; writing & publishing the most detailed historical retrospective to date, describing 65 years of manufactured housing chattel capital history; spending a day in Chicago ‘telling it like it is’ at FHFA’s first Listening Session; laying plans for the 26th annual Networking Roundtable this Fall; and, handing out more COBA7 Challenge Coins to affiliates!

I.

Land Lease Community Owners Dominate FHFA Listening Session in Chicago on 25 January 2017

FLASH NEWS. “Of the 20+/- manufactured housing representatives a the first FHFA Listening Session, 13 were allocated time to address the 50+/- person audience. Of those 13 businessmen and women, five were owners of land lease communities – making the real estate asset class the best represented segment of the industry!” Quoted from the February issue of the Allen CONFIDENTIAL! business newsletter.

All three national advocates for manufactured housing were present at this Chicago event: MHARR, MHI, and COBA7.

It’s anticipated a Special Edition of TAC! will be published after the Federal Housing Finance Agency publicizes session proceedings. TAC! has promised to enclose copies of all handout material distributed at the Listening Session, including the Historical Retrospective published last Sunday, as a blog posting, at the community-investor.com website. Have you read it? If not, suggest you go there and do so. 65 years of history!

And finally; COBA7 has already responded to FHFA’s request for public input relative to chattel financing of manufactured homes sited in land lease communities. If you’d like a copy of the eight page FHFA booklet describing parameters for said input, phone the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764 & request it.

Deadline for input, labeled as ‘Chattel Pilot RFI’ is 17 February 2017 via email, webpage, or USPS. What an incredible opportunity for LLCommunity owners/operators, large & small, nationwide – YOU – to influence our realty asset class’ present day and future financing of new and resale manufactured homes!

No longer should you feel ‘left out’ because a national advocacy entity neglected to inform you of opportunities to share your expertise, knowledge, experience and or opinions about manufactured housing & land lease community matters! COBA7 will keep YOU informed!

Here’s what land lease community owners and MH businessmen & women had to say about last week’s blog posting, on this very subject:

“Excellent treatment of the MH financing mistakes. The naïveté’ and greed of Wall Street & MHIindustry – pushed home sales and financing through the stratosphere during the 1990s. MHRetailers, with lenders turning a blind eye, ‘created’ down payments, phantom income, and credit for below-marginal buyers/borrowers all too eager to buy what they clearly couldn’t afford. What was later termed ‘mortgage fraud’ was rampant. We killed the goose that laid the golden egg – THEN along came the S.,A.F.E. & Dodd-Frank Acts.

Thank you Otto Wantuck. I too mistook the ’76 HUD Code as the sole cause of the dramatic downturn in MH production, when the real culprit was apparently the first round of chattel lending abuses 20 years prior to the downturn of the 90s. Hello; another 20 year anniversary isn’t far away – is it any wonder that powers- that-be are reluctant to repeal the S.A.F.E. & Dodd-Frank Acts?

I also went back and read blog # 284, ‘UPSIDE DOWN in a Mobilehome Park’ (2/13/14). Should be a mandatory re-read by everyone in the MHIndustry every five to 10 years!”

And then this input from the Midwest:

“Great history lesson, and a very pointed commentary on the importance of GOOD financing. It will also teach us that ‘price/value’ was another hugely important factor George, and we will see that reflected in increased quality/longevity and stability in land lease community treatment of rent and maintenance issues. We are in line now, for the updraft to find us.”

Finally, this from the left coast:

Nice recap of the history of Chattel. One might wonder if Fannie & Freddie ‘s (anticipated) expansionary policies into chattel lending might have an alternative motive. (Specifically), One would wonder if it is a beginning step in the process for local development for affordable land lease communities. Government could offer affordable housing solutions with GSE approved financing. And end around existing LLCommunity owners who have old communities needing new replacement units and infrastructure improvement. Just an observation….” (lightly edited. GFA)

Wow! Is it that time of year again – already? Guess so. Well, if you have one or more ‘hot topics’ you’d like to see covered at this year’s Networking Roundtable, let us know ASAP via (317) 346-7156. Also, if you’d like to be considered as a primary presenter at this affair, let us know that as well, along with one or more topics about which you’re the ‘duty expert’, so to speak.